In follow-up reports, ERL has said that the fare hike for one-way trips to KLIA is necessary to keep the company sustainable. It said the RM20 increase for one-way tickets between KL Sentral and KLIA/KLIA2 was needed because it faced increasing costs, The Star reports.

“The fare revision announced yesterday was necessary to ensure that it remains sustainable in the face of rising operating costs,” ERL said. The company added that the ERL project was implemented at a cost of RM2.4 billion, and it had been suffering losses over the years amounting to RM671.7 million.

The company also said that new operating costs would be coming into play, ERL having invested in new train sets – from May next year, six new trains will be progressively delivered, which will increase ERL’s capacity by 50%.

Meanwhile, Deputy Transport Minister Datuk Abdul Aziz Kaprawi said ERL had justified the increase saying that stagnant fares had resulted in losses, and that operating costs had doubled since it first began operations 14 years ago.

According to Malay Mail Online, Kaprawi said that the 57% increase in the KLIA Express fare would mainly affect foreign visitors, and not local or frequent travellers. “The published fares are basically for foreigners, people who don’t use it often,” he told reporters. He added that the hike will be mitigated by travel card packages and discounts.

In response to why the sudden fare hike was approved by the Cabinet instead of an incremental increase, he said that would best be answered by the Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD).

In related news, ERL has admitted its direct rail service fare to to KLIA is not the lowest in the world, which it had stated in yesterday’s fare increase announcement. It said that despite the increase, the service still offered the lowest airport rail transfer fare globally.

Following allegations circling in social media contradicting the claim, the company clarified that the KLIA Express service is the second lowest fare per kilometre in the world, The Sun reports. The concessionaire told the publication that the distance of ERL track from the city centre to KLIA2 is 59 km, with cost of travel per km being 93 sen under the new RM55 fare structure. This makes it the second lowest after Moscow Aeroexpress, which has a fare of RUB470 (RM29.70), or 60 cents per km, running over 49 km of track.

Anthony Lim believes that nothing is better than a good smoke and a car with character, with good handling aspects being top of the prize heap. Having spent more than a decade and a half with an English tabloid daily never being able to grasp the meaning of brevity or being succinct, he wags his tail furiously at the idea of waffling - in greater detail - about cars and all their intrinsic peculiarities here.

It is very difficult to get double digit increment %, however if you compared with the price hike for these services, once they increase.. its always > 10% !!! RM20 increase on top of RM35 previously.. this is absurd…

“It was profitable last year and we hope it can be profitable this year,” Nadzmi said in an interview in Kuala Lumpur, declining to provide earnings figures. “Flotation is of course in our mind. That’s how we want to bring this company forward.”

The stint was only halfway done when he was reassigned to ERL, with the task of starting the construction and getting it fully operational and in the black.

“The real challenge was to make it profitable,” he said.

Good shareholders’ support and valuable lessons learnt from the project management at Putra helped him achieve that.

In fact, the express rail line was finished about six weeks ahead of schedule, and well within its allocated budget. It was profitable by the second year. “I think it could be the first light rail train company that was profitable,” he said.

Once ERL broke even, Aminudin and his team focused their efforts to increase in ridership. The numbers exceeded expectations.
At the end of 2004, ERL had 5,800 riders each day to the KL International Airport (KLIA). Half a year later, the total number of riders surged to 14,000.

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